BRUGIÈRE, PIERRE. – Publicist and constitutional priest, born at Thiers on 3 October 1730 and died in Paris on 7 November 1803. A canon at Thiers, he refused to subscribe to the formula of acceptance of the bull Unigenitus. In 1768 he was in Paris, in the community of s. Rocco,
having previously exercised his ministry at Clermont, Riom, and Brioude. After swearing the civil constitution of the clergy, which he defended against ecclesiastical censures, he obtained, also because he was a Jansenist, the parish of S. Paolo; he nevertheless always remained faithful to celibacy, even protesting against the archbishop of Paris, who had granted canonical institution to a married priest. Having thereby become suspect to the Constituent Assembly, he was imprisoned, but was soon released; and on two further occasions for the abusive exercise of his ministry. In 1797 and 1801 he attended the councils of the constitutional clergy.
Obstinate and fanatical in schism, even after the return of his constitutional colleagues and after the concordat, he attempted to perpetuate the schism through the foundation of the Society of Christian Philosophy. Misled by the Jansenist, Gallican, and Enlightenment principles that delivered him into the arms of the Revolution, he was the standard-bearer of the secessionist movement of the Constitutional Church, whose history could be written by recounting the history of his writings. As a Jansenist, he opposed devotion to the Sacred Heart, and also held original ideas concerning the Virgin. As a Gallican, he called into question the principle of ecclesiastical authority and promoted an innovation intended to introduce the French language into liturgical functions and the administration of the Sacraments.
Among his many writings, the following deserve particular mention: Instructions catholiques sur la dévotion au Sacré-Coeur de Jésus (Paris 1777); Discours patriotique au sujet des brefs du pape (ibid. 1791); Réflexions d'un curé constitutionnel sur le décret de l'assemblée nationale concernant le mariage (ibid. 1791); Lettre d'un curé sur le décret qui supprime le costume des prêtres (ibid. 1791); Le nouveau disciple de Luther (ibid. 1792); Appel au peuple français concernant l'admission de la langue française dans l'administration des Sacrements (1798); decis aux fidèles sur la rétractation du serment civique (ibid. 1800); Observations des fidèles à MM. les évêques de France (ibid. 1802); Instructions choisies (ibid. 1804).